Abstract: This article presents a comparison between firms with Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs), producer cooperatives (co-ops), and traditional, profit-maximizing firms (PMFs). Most of the labor managed firms (LMF) or co-ops theories assume that such firms maximize surplus per worker. One would expect, therefore, to find co-ops operating in a range of greater average product per worker. Yet, if one measures average product by sales per employee, co-ops operated at a level significantly below that of both ESOPs and PMFs, the ESOPs' average sales per employee were not significantly different than those of PMFs. Co-ops' value-added per employee is also well below the average level for either ESOPs or PMFs, but the difference is not statistically significant for PMF's. Likewise, value-added per employee in ESOPs did not significantly differ from that of PMFs. By the very nature of co-ops, one expects co-op members to have greater formal or legal rights to worker participation and employee ownership than ESOPs. Likewise, one expects co-ops to have greater worker participation in informal ways.

　　Subjects: EMPLOYEE ownership; MANAGEMENT -- Employee participation; PRODUCER cooperatives; INCENTIVES in industry; STOCK purchase agreements (Close corporations); STOCK ownership